When Dating in China Gets You Down, Pick Up a “Spare Tire”

When Dating in China Gets You Down,  Pick Up a “Spare Tire”
May 27, 2015 By ShanghaiCityGirl

The dating scene in Shanghai creates the hard knock life for us – stead of treated…we get tricked, stead of kisses…we get kicked. That’s the ugly truth and last week, during one of my morning survival drills aka work commute, I came across an article that shattered all remaining illusions. It revealed 13 stages of dating in Shanghai, where you commence as a happy single, go through your share of encounters, and when you finally thought you found the one, the impermanence of people’s lifestyles here leaves you convinced that you are going to die alone. Ouch, the author seems to come from a school of hard knocks indeed!

However! There is a way to stretch the game out and those who seem to have mastered the skill are none others than the infamous green tea bitches. These resourceful ladies always keep a bunch of bèi tāi guys in close vicinity. Bèi tāi (备胎) literally means “spare tire” and in China by no means does it refer to skin surplus issues.

Yes, Master

Chinese spare tire aka bèi tāi is a “temporary lover” and although it can refer to both men and women, it is usually guys who become bèi tāi victims to stone hearted lǜ chá biǎos. A bèi tāi never gets to be declared as an official boyfriend. He complies with the fact that as soon as his love interest finds a long term partner, he will be put on hold, and he realizes that he is just one of many spare tires in her entourage.

This is because merely one bèi tāi can’t fulfill all her requirements, so they will be assigned distinctive functions for their green tea bitch master: one will bring her lunch, one will help with her homework, one will walk her home, one will fix her computer…

Don't Be A “Jack”

There is a subcategory of bèi tāi. My students explained to me that, as much as bèi tāi is in quite a predicament, it is still not as hopeless as qiān jīn dǐng (千斤顶) which literally means “jack.” They explained it to me this way: “You know, to use a spare tire, you need to use a jack first to get it out. But while the spare tire, once taken out from the storage spot, might be used for quite a long time, you need the jack very rarely and for a short period of time. Then you forget about it until the next emergency.”

So while the bèi tāi has the potential to become the new, main tire, qiān jīn dǐng knows clearly that he will never be graced with boyfriend status. Nevertheless, he will still be there and show up at any conceivable emergency she might have.

It's a Hard Knock Dating Scene

Living in the humongous urban jungle called Shanghai is not easy. In a perfect world we would all just “be kind and have courage” like Cinderella to deal with all the hard knocks. But in reality, when all your hopes of finding the right significant other get razed to the ground and “the situation ain’t improving,” you can either: a) become depressed feeling like you want to “murder everything moving” OR b) get yourself some bèi tāis, so that, when you have one of those days in Shanghai when you feel like the city overwhelms you with its 99 problems, then at least loneliness won’t be one.

Check out more from ShanghaiCityGirl, or find more amazing blogs by our community here.

Warning:The use of any news and articles published on eChinacities.com without written permission from eChinacities.com constitutes copyright infringement, and legal action can be taken.

Keywords: dating in China China bei tai lover

15 Comments

All comments are subject to moderation by eChinacities.com staff. Because we wish to encourage healthy and productive dialogue we ask that all comments remain polite, free of profanity or name calling, and relevant to the original post and subsequent discussion. Comments will not be deleted because of the viewpoints they express, only if the mode of expression itself is inappropriate.

serge.b

same as everywhere

May 31, 2015 20:59 Report Abuse

tinanguyen

Its truthly

May 29, 2015 17:04 Report Abuse

ironman510

Using time wisely.

May 28, 2015 08:59 Report Abuse

Guest14237618

I have never heard of any foreigner having a hard time dating (getting laid) in China. Just today I got 3 young attractive girls' numbers, one of them after a quick elevator chat. I can see the sexual desire in Chinese girls' eyes when they are looking at me.

May 27, 2015 21:30 Report Abuse

bill8899

why all the haters? I like this article. told me all I must know about beitai.

May 27, 2015 18:22 Report Abuse

Guest2391644

"My students explained to me." Did you explain the advantages of being gay/lesbian to your students?

May 27, 2015 16:27 Report Abuse

bill8899

Truly fascinating! I loved it! Five stars!

May 27, 2015 15:42 Report Abuse

Guest2301262

Shanghai style of the Mosuo culture? LOL en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosuo

May 27, 2015 12:26 Report Abuse

Pandaguy1961

Behavior like this is hardly unique to Chna

May 27, 2015 06:59 Report Abuse

Robk

That's true. And this is usually how Chinese redirect criticism. However, behavior like this is extremely rampant in China (due to population or culture or both) and more or less normal. But I can't blame the ladies for taking advantage of it. They were done wrong in many ways. I would say 80-90% of Chinese males that CAN or if given the opportunity would have a mistress and cheat on their wives. I have discussed this with Chinese men many times over shao kao and bai jiu lol.

May 27, 2015 15:11 Report Abuse

Chairman_Cow

Lol you took the words right out of my mouth.

May 27, 2015 10:58 Report Abuse

kasuka91

Haha! I haven't heard anyone use that word in a while; it needs to be used more often!

May 27, 2015 16:34 Report Abuse

Chairman_Cow

Haha!

May 28, 2015 11:31 Report Abuse